Published by an old curmudgeon who came to America in 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and proudly served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He is a former law enforcement officer and a retired professor of criminal justice who, in 1970, founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. BarkGrowlBite refuses to be politically correct.
(Copyrighted articles are reproduced in accordance with the copyright laws of the U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 107.)

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Whenever a court sentences a convicted offender to prison and orders him to pay a heavy fine and to make restitution to his victim, it is perpetrating a bad joke on the criminal justice system. Here is a case in point:

MAKE THE BAD GUYS PAYBy Bob Walsh

PacoVilla’s Corrections blogSeptember 29, 2009

A state appeals court has recently ordered a burglar to reimburse his victim slightly more than $6,000 in lost wages for all the time the victim spent attending court proceedings other than as a witness.

Jason Lee Moore is a burglar. In February of 2008 he broke into a doctor's house in Redding and stole some stuff. In a fairly broad interpretation of law requiring criminals to compensate victims the Third District Court of appeals has ordered Moore, who was also sentenced to 10 years and change for burglary, to compensate the doctor at the rate of $125 per hour for attending all court proceedings. The ruling was 3-0. Moore's lawyer is said to be planning an appeal.----------

If we were living in a perfect world that's the way it should and would be. But we don't live in a perfect world.

I laugh every time some asshole gets sent to the joint and his sentence requires him to pay a $10,000 fine or so, and to make thousands of dollars in restitution. That's a joke! It ain't gonna happen.! When the average con gets out of prison he will be flat broke. Even if he turns his life around, he will probably be able to get only menial jobs paying the minimum wage.

In some jurisdictions they can garnish his wages. If he has a family to support, then the taxpayers will have to pick up the welfare tab. And if he's single, he'll just stop working if his wages are garnished, and that means he'll return to a life of crime.

If a parolee fails to pay a court ordered fine or restitution, he will be in violation of his parole. Are they going to send him back to the joint on a parole violation when our prisons are overcrowded? Now you get the joke, don’t you.

Roman Polanski, the famous movie director, has just been arrested in Switzerland and is now awaiting extradition to the United States. Polanski pled guilty in 1977 to statutory rape. 43 at the time, he gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her. He fled to France before he was sentenced and has been on the lam for some 32 years.

France’s government has condemned the arrest and key Hollywood figures have rushed to Polanski’s defense. Of course, the French don’t see a 43-year-old man having sex with a 13-year-old girl as anything to get excited about. And we would expect nothing less from Hollywood with its reputation for wild sex parties and rampant drug use. But some of the remarks made in Polanski’s defense are simply outrageous. Rape is being redefined.

Whoopie Goldberg, while a guest on The View talk show, said: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like, 'You know what, this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail. I'm not staying.' So that's why he left."

Polanski was married to actress Sharon Tate at the time she was murdered by the Charles Manson Family in 1969. Debra Tate, her sister, speaking on the NBC Today show, defended Polanski: "There's rape and then there's rape," she said. "It was determined that Roman did not forcibly have sex with this woman. It was a consensual matter."

Consensual? Even if the victim had been 23 instead of 13, this was not a consensual sex act. It was an out and out forcible rape. Here are the facts of the rape that took place during a party at Jack Nicholson’s home:

After plying her with Quaalude and champagne, Roman Polanski instructed his victim to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Goldberg, Debra Tate, and other Hollywood luminaries should not be allowed to get away with redefining rape in an attempt to help a child rapist. “Rape, rape” and “There's rape and then there's rape" – how ridiculous and outrageous! Our prisons are full of middle-aged men who were convicted of having consensual sex with underage girls.

Even though his victim has forgiven him and does not want to see him prosecuted, Polanski should be extradited to the United States and made to pay for the forcible rape of a child.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Today’s Houston Chronicle has an article on a growing trend in shootings by the police in Harris County. In 2007, 32 civilians were shot, 12 being killed. In 2008 it was 36 and 16. As of September 24 of this year the toll already stood at 44 and 20.

Houston city police officers had the highest number of shootings – 24 as of September 24, up from 21 in 2008 and 19 in 2007. As of September 24, Harris County sheriff deputies shot six civilians this year, down one from the seven shot last year.

Here is a little quiz. The reason for the increase in shootings is:

(A) fewer cops on the street because overtime funds were cut(B) the rise in unemployment has led to more thefts and drug use(C) cops are not prosecuted for shooting civilians(D) laws have been passed that allow more people to carry guns(E) all of the above(F) none of the above

Sorry, but if you guessed E, you were wrong.

The head of the Houston Police Officers Union says it’s A and B. He lays the blame for the increased shootings on the cutting of overtime pay by the city council and on the rise in unemployment. The overtime cuts led to a shortage of officers on the street. The unemployed have a lot of idle time on their hands and, when they run out of money, they turn to stealing and drugs.

A notorious black Houston activist says it’s C. He blames the increase in shootings on a “culture” in which cops are rarely prosecuted. “There have been too many shootings involving HPD officers, or Harris County deputies, where they have shot, wounded and even killed unarmed young men,” he said. “And, yet, these cops are being exonerated and no-billed [by grand juries].”

A spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney says it’s D. “I don’t want to blame the legislature, but the laws have become quite a bit more flexible about a person’s ability to carry a weapon,” she said. "If more people have the access and it becomes easier to carry them, there tends to be more shooting and more situations involving police officers.”

Criminal justice professor Larry Hoover, the director of the Police Research Center at Sam Houston State University, says it’s F. He blames the increase on “short-term random fluctuations.” “I don’t think there’s been any social, demographic, economic or crime change that explains the increase,” he said.

Professor Hoover noted that “over-all, homicide rates fluctuate fairly broadly in a given jurisdiction, and it should come as no surprise that police-related shootings might do the same by chance circumstance.”

I happen to agree with Hoover. So my answer, which I think is the correct one, is also F.

You can expect the head of the police union to blame police pay issues - city council budget cuts of overtime pay in this instance - and a shortage of cops for the increase in shootings. And you can expect a notorious black activist to blame it on a racist justice system. He accuses the cops of shooting down “unarmed young [black] men,” conveniently disregarding the fact that almost all of those shot by the police were armed.

As for the Harris County District Attorney’s spokesperson, she is full of shit! She said she does not want to blame the legislature, but that’s exactly what she’s doing. To blame the laws that allow licensed citizens to carry a gun is a real crock of shit! Those are not the people who have been involved in police shootings. Hey stupid, it’s the criminals, and they cannot get licensed!

Leave it to the Harris County Sheriff’s spokesman to take advantage of the fact that the six shootings by deputies so far this year are one less than last year. He attributed the reduction to training and the use of Tasers. That’s another real crock of shit! You can rest assured that HPD gives more and better training to its officers than does the sheriff’s department.

Furthermore, the sheriff's department has relatively few officers on patrol, thereby reducing the number of on-sight life or death confrontations. And speaking of the Tasers, an officer would be a suicidal fool if he resorted to using a zapper instead of his gun in a life-threatening situation.

The sheriff's spokesman also overlooked the fact that the high crime inner city neighborhoods patrolled by HPD lend themselves to more shootings than the unincorporated neighborhoods patrolled by sheriff’s deputies.

Often you see where the media refers to the number of previous shootings an officer has been involve in, if there were any. This is highly unfair because it implies that some officers are trigger happy. Circumstances will place some officers into numerous life or death situations while others may never find themselves staring death in the face.

Caroline Glick had a long column in today’s Townhall.com in which she ripped Obama apart for his foreign and domestic policies. Here are excerpts from her column concerning Obama’s stance against Israel:

AN ENFEEBLED OBAMA by Caroline Glick

Townhall.comSeptember 28, 2009

If Zbigniew Brzezinski had his way, the US would go to war against Israel to defend Iran's nuclear installations.

In an interview with the Daily Beast Web site last weekend, the man who served as former US president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser said, "They [IAF fighter jets] have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? We have to be serious about denying them that right. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not."

Brzezinski has long distinguished himself as one of the most outspoken Israel-haters in polite circles in Washington. Under normal circumstances, his remarks could be laughed off as the ravings of a garden variety anti-Semite. But these are not normal circumstances. Brzezinski served as a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, and his views are not terribly out of place among Obama's senior advisers in the White House. In an interview in 2002, Samantha Powers, who serves as a senior member of Obama's national security council, effectively called for the US to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians.

The fact of the matter is that Brzezinski's view is in line with the general disposition of Obama's foreign policy. Since entering office, Obama has struck a hard-line position against Israel while adopting a soft, even apologetic line toward Iran and its allies.

For eight months, Obama has sought to force Israel to the wall. He has loudly and repeatedly ordered the Netanyahu government to prevent all private and public construction for Jews in Israel's capital city and its heartland in order to facilitate the eventual mass expulsion of Jews from both areas, which he believes ought to become part of a Jew-free Palestinian state.

Until this week, Obama conditioned the resumption of negotiations toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians on such a prohibition of Jewish building and so encouraged Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to further radicalize his positions toward Israel. Until Obama came around, Abbas had no problem negotiating with Israeli leaders while Jews were building homes and schools and other structures in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. But with Obama requiring a freeze of all such construction, Abbas made clear in an interview with The Washington Post in May that he couldn't talk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu without looking like a sellout.

Obama made no equivalent demands of the Palestinians. He did not precondition talks on freezing illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem, or on dismantling the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group, or even simply on setting aside the Palestinian demand that Israel release convicted terrorists from its prisons. To the contrary, he has energetically supported the establishment of a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas - which the US State Department has since 1995 designated as a foreign terrorist organization to which US citizens, including the US president, are required by law to give no quarter.

What is just as disgusting as the theft from a corpse is that the hospital did not report this crime to the Stockton Police Department. That is typical of hospitals. When was the last time you heard of a hospital notifying the police that they caught one of their nurses stealing Demerol or other narcotics? They just fire the drug addicted thieving nurses, leaving them free to get a job at another hospital.

IS THIS STUPID AND TRAGIC, OR WHAT???By Bob Walsh

PacoVilla’s Corrections blogSeptember 28, 2009

Jerry Kubena Sr. was a retired Manteca [California] police lieutenant on June 1 when he died in the emergency room at St. Joseph's Hospital in Stockton. Cleveland J. Edmond was a 32-year old doctor working in the E. R. at the same time. Jerry Kubena Jr. and Karie Nelson, survivors of Jerry Sr. are suing, claiming Dr. Edmond let their father die so that he could steal the Presidential Rolex off his wrist. They further claim staff and administrators tried to cover the whole thing up.

Dr. Edmond is a traveling doctor, who lives in Hermosa Beach. He has been licensed since 2006 and has no record of disciplinary action. He was actually employed by Apexx Physicians Medical Corporation through some sort of contractual arrangement with Catholic Healthcare West, which owns and operates St. Joseph's.

After Lt.Kubena died one of the nurses attending asked specifically about what happened to his wristwatch, which she noticed on him before he passed. Two nurses, including the one who asked the original question, have stated on the record that they noticed a bulge in the doctors pocket at about that time which they described as "watch-like". Security was called and Dr. Edmond ignored their very specific orders to stay in the immediate area and went to the parking lot. A nurse who followed him said she saw Dr. Edmond throw something into the grass and she recovered the watch in question from the area where she saw Dr. Edmond throw something. Security cameras support the nurses portion of this story. Dr. Edmond was fired from the hospital immediately.

The Kubena family assert in their lawsuit that the hospital kept them in the dark about the watch incident for 11 days, in an effort to conceal the doctor's action and avoid liability. Allegedly hospital staff have asserted that they didn't call law enforcement because the Stockton P D has, in the past, been abusive towards them for reporting criminal activity at the E. R.

Presidential Rolexs sell for from $11,000 to over $40,000.

Do we have a doctor who took advantage of a situation to steal an expensive watch from a corpse? Do we have a doctor who took advantage of a situation to let a man die so that he could steal the watch from his body? Maybe there is something else entirely going on (but probably not). In any event there is what I am sure is a massive wrongful death suit in the works and the doctor is being arraigned today on grand theft charges. As far as I know there are no criminal charges in the works for the death.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Go away, we don’t want you! Iran is trying to join the exclusive nuclear weapons club whose membership consists of the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Three members in particular, the U.S., the U.K. and France, are leading the drive to exclude Iran and they are trying their best to kick the North Koreans out.

189 countries are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which calls for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and for the destruction of existing nuclear weapons. Israel, India and Pakistan never signed the treaty. North Korea did, but withdrew in 2003. The U.S., Russia, France, the U.K. and China have agreed to destroy their nuclear weapons in increments, but they are still armed to the teeth and are unlikely to disarm in the foreseeable future.

This brings us to Iran and North Korea. Who are we to tell these rogue regimes that they have no right to possess nuclear weapons? It takes a lot of audacity on the part of the haves to tell the have-nots that they cannot play in their own back yard. While there is no doubt that a nuclear armed North Korea and Iran present a threat to their neighbors and world peace, you sure can’t blame them for wanting to gain the power that comes with possessing weapons of mass destruction.

There has been an upside to having nuclear weapons. Since both the United States and the Soviet Union had the capability of destroying each other, their war remained a cold one instead of becoming a hot one. Until each acquired the ability to destroy the other, India and Pakistan battled each other continuously over territorial disputes. And after fighting off the Arabs in four wars, Israel has probably been spared from any further invasions because it has “the bomb.”

The United States is pushing hard for the international community to impose severe economic sanctions against Iraq if it continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions. While France and the U.K. are backing us on this, Russia and China are unlikely to go along. Russia and China are both supplying Iran with modern military weapons and China is a major importer of Iranian oil.

While I hate to see Iran and North Korea become nuclear powers, I feel they have every right to do so, especially since the members of the exclusive nuclear weapons club continue to possess what is commonly referred to as “the bomb.”

Saturday, September 26, 2009

If you’ve been following my blogs, you know that I have very little use for President Obama. I don’t like many of his left-wing positions and I detest Obama for siding with the Palestinians against the Israelis. Like him or not though, he is our president and he deserves better than to be the object of daily distortions and lies.

Hardly a day goes by when I don’t receive an e-mail containing some ridiculous or outrageous accusation against the president. The latest one accuses Obama of ordering that “No U.S. Serviceman Can Speak At Any Faith-Based Public Events Any More.” That accusation was contained in a purported "printout" of an article allegedly written by Charlie Stokes, MSU Area Agronomy Agent/County Director of the Extension Service. The article was alleged to have been published in t he DeKalb County Record Herald, Maysville, Missouri.

"I wanted to give y'all some disturbing information on our wonderful president. I work with the Catch-A-Dream Foundation which provides hunting and fishing trips to children with life-threatening illnesses. This past weekend we had our annual banquet / fundraiser event in Starkville.

"As a part of our program, we had scheduled Sgt. 1st Class Greg Stube, a highly decorated U.S. Army Green Beret and inspirational speaker who was severely injured while deployed overseas and didn't have much of a chance for survival. Greg is stationed at Ft. Bragg and received permission from his commanding officer to come speak at our function.

"Everything was on go until Obama made a policy that NO U.S. SERVICEMAN CAN SPEAK AT ANY FAITH-BASED PUBLIC EVENTS ANYMORE. Needless to say, Greg had to cancel his speaking event with us. Didn't know if anyone else was aware of this new policy.

"Wonder what kind of news we all will receive next. You're just starting to see the Obamanation. Your religion is on the list next."

And here is how the originator concluded that e-mail: I don't know about you, but this makes me furious. What a rotten thing to do by the "commander-in-chief". And I'm afraid we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Whenever I get one of these e-mails, I usually go to check out the urban legends on Snopes.com. In this case the story was FALSE, as most of the wild charges against Obama are. According to Snopes, Obama NEVER issued such an order. The Department of Defense appears to have a policy that prohibits servicemen from giving speeches at fund-raising events. That policy is NOT directed at any faith-based organization.

I went even further than Snopes. I googled up the DeKalb County Record Herald website. I spent over half-an-hour searching for the article using all the names, key words, etc. I could find no reference on that newspaper’s website to the alleged article. So it seems like no such article ever appeared in the DeKalb County Record Herald.

If I’m correct, it would appear that some Obama hater picked out the name of an obscure little Missouri publication to make his lies look like they were authentic. The use of the initials "MSU" was another deception intended to make the reader believe that Charlie Stokes held a position at Missouri State University, when in fact it was Mississippi State University where he worked.

Here is how craigslist.org responded to this lie: You morons will believe anything as long as it was written in an email sent to you by another moron.

What really pisses me off is that all those right-wing nuts and other Obama haters who fill the Internet up with deliberate distortions of the truth and outright lies about the president tend to discredit the rest of us when we express legitimate concerns about Obama’s policies. When we forward these outrageous accusations to our correspondents, we are just as guilty of lying as those who originated these hateful messages.

Here’s some good advise. If you do not want to be called a moron, check out the e-mails you get on Obama with Snopes.com. And if you find out they’re false, DO NOT FORWARD THEM! Instead, be sure and notify the people who forwarded those e-mails that they have been snookered into spreading a bunch of malicious lies.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Members of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at Michigan State University (MSU) didn’t know what they were getting into when they tried to suppress the free speech rights of Professor Indrek Wichman. On February 28, 2006 he read in the MSU student newspaper a call to protest the publication of the Muhammad cartoons. The article struck a raw nerve. He responded with the following:

Dear Moslem Association: As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France. This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests." If you do not like the values of the West--see the 1st Amendment--you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans. Cordially, I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Some may say this reaction was a tad over-heated. But in a university environment, the more important question is: Were the statements accurate? It’s tough to argue with the validity of Professor Wichman’s factual assertions. And even tougher to demand that Wichman remain morally neutral regarding the examples of Muslim misconduct he cites.

For over three weeks Professor Wichman heard nothing about his email. But behind the scenes, the MSA had called in CAIR and had three separate meetings with the MSU provost. The MSA and CAIR both demanded that Wichman be censured, disciplined, enrolled in diversity and sensitivity training, and even “re-educated” on Islam.

To his credit, the MSU Provost did not cave in to the CAIR/MSA demands. On March 20, 2006 he wrote Wichman a letter saying that he strongly disagreed with the “intemperate tone” of his email. But he added that Wichman still had rights to free speech. From there, things got worse.

The MSU Provost told Wichman that if he continued to “harass” and “intimidate” the MSU MSA - while creating a “hostile intellectual climate” - then formal charges consistent with MSU anti-discrimination policy (ADP) would be filed by MSU against him.

On April 24, 2006 Wichman realized that the issue had not quietly gone away. He began receiving telephone calls and emails from local newspapers, AP, Reuters and other national and international outlets. CAIR and MSA, frustrated by the MSU Provost, had gone over his head and published a response, organized a press conference, and made a national/international press release.

CAIR and MSA’s public call upon MSU to take “disciplinary action" against Wichman’s “Islamophobic” email was a classic example of Muslim cowardice. Michigan’s CAIR Executive Director Mr. Dawud Walid said it was “unconscionable for a professor to use his university e-mail account to foster a hostile learning environment for Muslim students.” He added, “The University needs to take appropriate disciplinary action in this case to demonstrate through its actions that anti-Muslim bigotry will not be tolerated on campus.”

It should be noted that Mr. Walid has gone to court to argue for applying Sharia law in mid-Michigan. That serves to undercut significantly his stature as an opponent of bigotry towards minorities.

I sat down for a beer - I believe it was a Danish beer – with Indrek Wichman in April. When he said he meant to “protest the protest” of the MSA he really meant it. He helped form a conservative faculty group at MSU. The group serves to protest speech codes, invite conservative speakers to campus, and represent students and faculty whose rights are trampled by the MSU administration.

Indrek Wichman is not your typical college professor. He is a true First Amendment hero.

Meanwhile, Dawud Walid is still fighting to repeal the First Amendment and keep Muslims from being offended. He wants to replace it with Sharia law so Muslims can freely beat their wives and publicly execute homosexuals.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

When will the U.N. Human Rights Council charge our soldiers and the U.S. with war crimes? After all, we’ve been killing a lot of civilians in Afghanistan. And our unmanned drones have been killing a lot of civilians in Pakistan. And don’t forget that our shock and awe bombings of Baghdad also killed a lot of civilians. Ah, but those damn Jews committed war crimes when they killed civilians in Gaza while defending themselves against rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

THE U.N.’S ANTI-ANTITERROR REPORTA biased ‘finding’ on Gaza could also apply to Afghanistan

The Wall Street JournalSeptember 23, 2009

When it comes to the U.N. and Israel, our thoughts often turn to those East German Olympic judges during the Cold War: Their bias was so transparent it could almost pass without notice. But a new report from a U.N. "fact finding mission" about January's war in the Gaza Strip marks a new low, employing logic and arguments that will be felt wherever the West confronts terrorism.

The Goldstone report—named after principal author, South African jurist Richard Goldstone—is a creature of the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, which in its three short years has condemned Israel more often than the U.N.'s other 191 member states combined, according to Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky. Mr. Goldstone's report devotes the bulk of its 575 pages to denouncing Israel for what it calls "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population." For this, it adds, Israeli soldiers could be individually liable for criminal prosecution in international courts, while Israel itself is held guilty of "a crime against humanity."

To arrive at these conclusions, Mr. Goldstone and his fellow panelists were forced to make some astonishing claims of fact. For example, they assert that the Gaza police force was a "civilian" agency, though it merged with Hamas's own paramilitary "Executive Force" after Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. The report also says it could not "establish the use of mosques for military purposes or to shield military activity," despite widely available real-time video evidence to the contrary.

The argument seems to be that Hamas can surround its combatants with civilians, and for Israel to strike back is a war crime. The report holds Israel culpable for pursuing a strategy essential in war, which is to break the enemy's will to fight. By this logic, FDR and Churchill could have been charged because the bombing of German industries and cities killed civilians in World War II.

The U.N. also holds Israel accountable as Gaza's "occupying power," never mind that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted all of Gaza's Jewish settlements in 2005. As for the "blockade" it accuses Israel of inflicting on the Strip, one wonders why Egypt, which has also sealed its border with Gaza, doesn't come in for similar condemnation.

The report treats Israel as the aggressor in the conflict, though the Israeli government sat still for more than three years as Hamas transformed Gaza into a terrorist enclave while firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities. At exactly what point, if any, does Mr. Goldstone believe Israel is entitled to self defense? His co-panelist, international law professor Christine Chinkin, offered a clue in January when she wrote that Hamas's rocket attacks on Israeli civilians did not "amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self defense."The Goldstone report includes some pro forma condemnation of Hamas's behavior, but Hamas leaders quickly endorsed the findings because they know they have nothing to fear from the International Criminal Court or any other special tribunal. Hamas violates the laws of war as a matter of daily routine, not least in the murder of Palestinian dissenters. The U.N. report can only hurt a Western nation like Israel that cares about world, or at least American, opinion.

If it is taken seriously, the Goldstone logic could (and eventually will) be applied to NATO tactics in Afghanistan, where civilians are also sometimes killed in the course of anti-Taliban operations. This may well be a U.N. goal—the preamble in a process that could lead to, say, Director Leon Panetta in the dock at the Hague.

As for the Obama Administration, it has rightly made it clear that it will not allow the report to reach the level of the Security Council, much less the International Criminal Court. But having now joined the Human Rights Council—a point the President underscored, to applause, in his speech yesterday at the U.N.—it now has an obligation to police that body and call it out on its charades, lest it become complicit.

Never before has a president of the United States taken such a strong stand against the State of Israel. In his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, President Obama issued a stinging condemnation of Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank. He proclaimed that the U.S. “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

Obama demanded that Israel “end the occupation that began in 1967.” He added that the U.S. must put more pressure on Israel to accept Arab demands. “The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians,” he said.

Obama is fully on the side of the Palestinians by making it crystal clear that he expects Israel to give up all the Jewish settlements and return all the land it captured in 1967 - the West Bank and East Jerusalem - to the Arabs. There are several hundred thousand Jews living in well established West Bank settlements. “Fuck ‘em” is what Obama said about those settlers.

I suspect that the Indians “do not accept the legitimacy of continued American settlements.” So, if Israel is expected to give up the West Bank settlements, why shouldn’t the U.S. give up Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Detroit, just to name a few of the continued settlements that were built on land captured from the Native Americans?

America’s liberal Jews should be ashamed of themselves for supporting Obama. He is siding with Fatah, the “moderate” wing of the PLO which along with Mahmoud Abbas, its leader, just last month declared their intention to liquidate the “Zionist entity.” Shit, Fatah will not even utter the word “Israel.” If Obama gets his way, he will be helping the Arabs achieve their vow to destroy the only nation that is a refuge for Jews persecuted in other parts of the world.

Obama’s statement about America’s “unwavering commitment” to Israel’s security is just so much hogwash. Does anyone in their right mind really believe that, when the Arabs invade the “Zionist entity” to liquidate the Jewish state, we will come to the rescue and shed the blood of our brave young American soldiers in defense of Israel’s people?

The fact is this: the American public is not racist. In fact, we're downright evenhanded -- we elect incompetents of all color to high office. We don't just elect Jimmy Carter president -- we elect the black Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama

Obama resembles Carter in virtually every way.

Carter hated Israel, and along with his National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, sought to undermine it; Obama, along with covert foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, hates Israel and seeks to undermine it.

Brzezinski came out this week in favor of American forces shooting down Israeli jets headed to Iran to bomb their nuclear reactors.

Obama used the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana as an opportunity to push Israel into concessions to Arab terrorists (his Ramadan message, by contrast, praised the contributions of Islam and pledged America's "unyielding" support for a Palestinian state).

The Ukrainians want to build a hotel to accommodate soccer fans on the site where, in 1941, nearly 34,000 unarmed Jews were gunned down by the Nazis. Where is the world's outcry over the proposed desecration of a piece of ground that should serve us all as a reminder of man's inhumanity to mankind?

UKRAINE PLANS HOTEL ON SITE OF BABI YAR MASSACRE BY NAZISBy Uzi Dann

Haaretz DailySeptember 23, 2009

The opening line from Yevgeny Yevtushenko's most famous poem, "Babi Yar" - "No monument stands over Babi Yar" - may once again be an accurate reflection of reality if Kiev's municipality carries out its plan to build a hotel on the memorial site of one of the most notorious massacres of Jews during the Holocaust.

On September 29 and 30, 1941, German SS troops, supported by other German units and local collaborators, gathered 33,771 Jewish civilians at the ravine outside Kiev and murdered them with machine guns.

Attempts to commemorate the massacre after the war were thwarted by the Soviet Union. Yevtushenko, a Russian poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist and film director born July 18, 1933, was politically active during the Khrushchev Thaw. He wrote what would become perhaps his most famous poem, "Babi Yar," in 1961.

Noting the absence of a memorial in Babi Yar, the poem denounces the Soviet distortion of history concerning the Nazi massacre of Kiev's Jews as well as anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

SOCCER TOURISM

After the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine set up a monument on the site.

Last week, however, the Kiev municipality approved a plan to build 28 hotels to accommodate the tens of thousands of visitors expected for soccer's 2012 European Championships. One of these hotels is planned to be set up on the Babi Yar site, now in a residential area of Kiev.

Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi has reportedly been interested in turning his city's remaining green space into real estate and is taking advantage of Euro 2012 to implement his plan, city sources said.

City councilman Sergei Melnik, one of the many who oppose the plan, on Tuesday leaked the details to the media.

Unbelievable! Utterly amazing! In 1999, eight years after he kidnapped Jaycee Dugard, the U.S. Parole Commission awarded Phillip Garrido a certificate of commendation for his good conduct while on parole and rewarded him with an early discharge from his 50-year prison term for a 1977 kidnapping and rape.

And now the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is stonewalling attempts by the media to obtain Garrido’s parole supervision records. CDCR maintains that Garrido's parole agent operated "by the book." By the book? If that's true, the book he operated by must have been full of blank pages.

Obviously, neither the federal government nor the State of California provided this piece of shit with any meaningful parole supervision. And what little supervision they did provide failed to detect that Garrido was holding another kidnap victim, Dugard, captive on his premises during the past 18 years.

Nearly eight years after Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped, Phillip Garrido received a certificate from the U.S. Parole Commission lauding him for his behavior since his release from prison in 1988.

"You are hereby discharged from parole," the March 9, 1999, certificate read.

"After a thorough review of your case, the Commission has decided that you are deserving of an early discharge," said the document signed by administrator Raymond E. Essex. "You are commended for having responded positively to supervision and for the personal accomplishment(s) you have made.

"The Commission trusts that you will continue to be a productive citizen and obey the laws of society."

The certificate is among 19 pages of parole commission papers released to The Bee under the federal Freedom of Information Act on Garrido, who allegedly kidnapped Dugard from in front of her South Lake Tahoe-area home in 1991, then managed to hide her from federal and state parole agents for years afterward.

Garrido had been convicted of kidnap and rape in 1977 in Nevada and sentenced to 50 years in federal prison and a concurrent state sentence of five years to life, The release of the documents adds perspective to how he managed to win release from federal parole after only 11 years. At the time he was sentenced, he was expected to be on federal parole until 2027.

After kidnapping Dugard in 1991, authorities allege, Garrido was able to keep her hidden in his Antioch-area backyard for 18 years. The federal records give only a bare-bones glimpse of Garrido's supervision during that time, and do not provide any indication of how regularly he was visited by federal parole agents.

After being released from federal parole in 1999, Garrido remained under California supervision. California corrections officials have refused to provide The Bee with records of how often agent Edward Santos visited Garrido's Antioch home between 1999 and last month, when Dugard was discovered alive after walking into Santos' office with Garrido.

Those parole records, requested by The Bee through a state Public Records Act request on Aug. 28, would include Santos' field notes from visits to the Garrido home and Garrido's visits to the Concord parole office.

Corrections officials have said Santos operated "by the book" and solved the mystery of Dugard's disappearance by calling police when she walked into his office.

On Tuesday, a corrections official said the matter was under review, but that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation likely would refuse to release the parole records because of a two-month-old department regulation that does not allow release of agents' field notes. Previously, the department had cited a different law -- one that applied to probation records, not parole records -- to deny release of the documents.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the state cannot create regulations that exempt it from laws that require disclosure of public documents.

"The department has no authority to amend the Public Records Act by regulation, and certainly has no authority to regulate the California constitution by regulation," Scheer said.

Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, 54, are in the El Dorado County jail facing kidnap, rape and other charges stemming from Dugard's abduction when she was 11. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Since their arrest last month, law enforcement agencies have sought to determine if they can be tied to any other crimes, including the disappearances in 1988 and 1989 of two young Bay Area girls.

Police were continuing to dig through sections of the Garrido backyard Tuesday in connection with those disappearances, and said that if they do not find new evidence today they likely will end their search this afternoon.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

A jailer was shot early Sunday at a Bandera County (Texas) facility, the sheriff's office reported.

Around 5 a.m., two dispatchers at a new jail facility on Highway 173 reportedly heard noise coming from a nearby hallway. They investigated the scene and found nothing.

But, when they heard the noise again, they feared that someone was inside the facility. They asked a deputy to check out the scene, which he did. Officials say Deputy A.J. Griffin had his gun at his side.

Jailer David Spangler -- thinking that the dispatchers had returned, and hoping to play a prank on them -- jumped out from behind a wall. At which point Griffin became startled and fired his weapon, striking the guard.

The bullet from Griffin's gun went through a bone in Spangler's leg. Officials say that once Deputy Griffin realized what had happened, he attempted to administer first aid to the jailer.

Spangler was taken to Wilford Hall, where he underwent one operation, and is currently awaiting a second.

Officials tell KENS 5 they are awaiting Spangler's recovery before they decide whether or not to reprimand the deputy. The Texas Rangers are currently investigating the incident.

BOWLING FOR $4,000

From TBO.com:

POLK UNDERCOVER DRUG INVESTIGATORS PLAY Wii DURING RAID

With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County (Florida) undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March.

As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco's house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame.

While some detectives hauled out evidence such as flat screen televisions and shotguns, others threw strikes, gutter balls and worked on picking up spares.

A Polk County sheriff's detective cataloging evidence repeatedly put down her work and picked up a Wii remote to bowl. When she hit two strikes in a row, she raised her arms above her head, jumping and kicking.

While a female detective lifted a nearby couch looking for evidence, another sheriff's detective focused on pin action.

But detectives with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the Auburndale, Lakeland and Winter Haven police departments did not know that a wireless security camera connected to a computer inside Difalco's home was recording their activity.

The recording obtained by News Channel 8 showed several members of the county's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force entering the house shortly after 8 a.m. According to the search warrant, their mission was to search for drugs, stolen property and the fruits of any illegal drug activity.

The other day, Jimmy Carter spoke to a crowd of 6,500 as he and his wife received the nonviolence award from James Madison University's Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence. This is what Carter had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: "As President Barack Obama has made clear, the key factor that prevents peace is the continuing building of Israeli settlements in Palestine, driven by a determined minority of Israelis who desire to occupy and colonize east Jerusalem and the West Bank."

What a joke! Carter is obviously turning a blind eye to the fact that the Palestinians want to destroy the Jewish state. The same holds true for President Obama. Early last month at its party congress, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, the "moderate" arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization, publicized its goals, declaring:

"The armed revolution of the Arabic Palestinian nation is a decisive factor in the fight for the liberation and the liquidation of the Zionist presence. This struggle will not end until after the liquidation of the Zionist entity and the liberation of Palestine."

This is really nothing new. Both Fatah and Hamas have, on many occasions, publicly proclaimed their determination to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. Abbas, when speaking in Arabic, has made the same declaration numerous times. Since the Palestinians and their leaders have vowed to liquidate the "Zionist entity," why should Israel bother to make peace with those who are determined to destroy it?

Monday, September 21, 2009

In January 2000, Cindy Williams, then a senior research fellow at MIT, had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which she criticized a proposed 25% pay raise for military personnel. According to Snopes.com, Williams maintained that "claims that servicemen in the military suffered a 13% ‘pay gap’ relative to the private sector were inaccurate, and that military personnel were already well paid compared to the average American." Williams had previously served as assistant director for national security in the Congressional Budget Office.

Michael Bragg, a serviceman, took offense to the op-ed piece and responded with a letter. Unfortunately, Bragg misidentified the MIT senior research fellow as Cindy Williams, the actress who portrayed Shirley on the 1970s sitcom "Laverne and Shirley." His letter was not published in the Post, most likely because he also misidentified the paper as the Washington Times. Cindy Williams, the actress, became the victim of hate mail once Bragg’s letter appeared all over the internet.

The letter was originally written nine years ago while Bragg was stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Last month, someone revised the original letter to make it look like he was serving in Afghanistan. Sadly, Bragg’s misidentification of Williams caused irreparable harm to Cindy Williams the actress.

Even though Bragg conveniently failed to mention that servicemen get their room and board, as well as their clothing, on top of their pay, he nevertheless made some excellent points in his letter. That’s why I have chosen to reproduce it here and now:

Ms Williams:

I just had the pleasure of reading your column, "Our GIs earn enough" and I am a bit confused. Frankly, I'm wondering where this vaunted overpayment is going, because as far as I can tell, it disappears every month between DFAS (The Defense Finance and Accounting Service) and my bank account. Checking my latest earnings statement I see that I make $1,117.80 before taxes per month. After taxes, I take home $874.20. When I run that through the calculator, I come up with an annual salary of $13,413.60 before taxes, and $10,490..40, after.

I work in the Air Force Network Control Center where I am part of the team responsible for a 5,000 host computer network. I am involved with infrastructure segments, specifically with Cisco Systems equipment. A quick check under jobs For Network Technicians in the Washington , D.C. area reveals a position in my career field, requiring three years experience with my job. Amazingly, this job does NOT pay $13,413.60 a year. No, this job is being offered at $70,000 to $80,000 per annum........... I'm sure you can draw the obvious conclusions.

Given the tenor of your column, I would assume that you NEVER had the pleasure of serving your country in her armed forces. Before you take it upon yourself to once more castigate congressional and DOD leadership for attempting to get the families in the military's lowest pay brackets off of WIC and food stamps, I suggest that you join a group of deploying soldiers headed for Afghanistan; I leave the choice of service branch up to you. Whatever choice you make, though, opt for the SIX month rotation: it will guarantee you the longest possible time away from your family and friends, thus giving you full "deployment experience."

As your group prepares to board the plane, make sure to note the spouses and children who are saying good-bye to their loved ones. Also take care to note that several families are still unsure of how they'll be able to make ends meet while the primary breadwinner is gone. Obviously they've been squandering the"vast" piles of cash the government has been giving them.

Try to deploy over a major holiday; Christmas and Thanksgiving are perennial favorites. And when you're actually over there, sitting in a foxhole,shivering against the cold desert night; and the flight sergeant tells you that there aren't enough people on shift to relieve you for chow, remember this: trade whatever MRE (meal-ready- to-eat) you manage to get for the tuna noodle casserole or cheese tortellini, and add Tabasco to everything. This gives some flavor.

Talk to your loved ones as often as you are permitted; it won't nearly be long enough or often enough, but take what you can get and be thankful for it. You may have picked up on the fact that I disagree with most of the points you present in your op-ed piece.

But, tomorrow from Kabul, I will defend to the death your right to say it.

You see, I am an American fighting man, a guarantor of your First Amendment rights and every other right you cherish.. On a daily basis, my brother and sister soldiers worldwide ensure that you and people like you can thumb your collective nose at us, all on a salary that is nothing short of pitiful and under conditions that would make most people cringe We hemorrhage our best and brightest into the private sector because we can't offer the stability and pay of civilian companies.

And you, Ms. Williams, have the gall to say that we make more than we deserve? You can kiss my royal red a**!!!

The Jewish year 5769 saw the swearing in of United States President Barack Obama, who rapidly turned out to be the most hostile U.S. president ever towards Israel, according to Prof. Eitan Gilboa, an expert on the U.S. at Bar Ilan University.

The United States under Obama decided to go on the offensive against Israel, Gilboa told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service Sunday. "Israeli-American relations underwent a great upheaval in the Obama era," he explained. "The new administration decided to conduct an open conflict with the purpose of improving the United States' image in the eyes of the Arab countries and at the expense of the state of Israel."

OBAMA 'PROVED HIS IGNORANCE'

Obama "humiliated Israel," Gilboa said. "Before [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu delivered his historic speech at Bar Ilan University he called Obama in the White House in order to share with him in advance the content of his speech. Barack Obama spoke with him on the phone with his feet propped up on the desk, and the White House sent these photographs to the news media so that the message would be clear: Obama is belittling Netanyahu."

Obama "does not begin to understand the Middle East," Gilboa opined. "This president failed in all aspects of his foreign policy. He does not understand anything at all about our region and his inability to understand that Israel can be a strategic partner only further proves his ignorance. Only now is Obama starting to learn that his strategy was misguided."

FROM 'MESSIAH' TO MORTAL

"He wanted to be liked by the Arab world but he sees the reactions in the Arab world and he understands that there may have to be a new strategy. He is also getting a lot of criticism from congressmen who sent him a document in which they attack him and say that his policy towards Israel is unacceptable. Obama had a lot of credit at the start of his presidency but now he is in the same place where most presidents were in the past. Obama has crashed from the status of a messiah to that of an ordinary mortal."

Prof. Gilboa added that he finds it hard to understand Netanyahu's "complete surrender" to American demands. "Netanyahu could have resisted the pressures more stridently," he said. "The only explanation I have [for his behavior] is that perhaps he was promised things that justify his decision to freeze the construction [in Judea and Samaria]. But there is a real failure in the entire strategy here: the Americans said that they wanted to see confidence-building measures by the Palestinians, too, but in the meantime only Israel has made concessions and the other side gave nothing."

OBAMA 'PROMISED JEWISH HOMES TO ARABS'

Obama gave PA officials guarantees that they will eventually take over Jewish homes and buildings throughout most of Judea and Samaria, a top Palestinian Authority official told WND.

"We heard from the U.S. that no matter what Israel is building in [Judea and Samaria], it will not affect a final status agreement to create a Palestinian state," said the PA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The Americans told us Netanyahu might construct in [Judea and Samaria] for now but we (Palestinians) can enjoy these houses later. The evacuated homes will not be destroyed like some were when Israel pulled out of Gaza," the official said.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Law enforcement officers in the State of Washington are alarmed and citizens are thoroughly pissed-off over the escape of a criminally insane killer during a field trip by inmates of a state mental institution.

In 1987, Phillip Arnold Paul murdered an elderly woman. During his trial he was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. He was ordered confined to a hospital for the criminally insane.

Last Thursday, the powers that be at the hospital decided that 30 of their patients could be taken on a field trip to visit the Spokane County fair. Paul was one of those selected for the bus trip to the fair.

After their arrival, Paul just melted into the crowd of families visiting the fair. He hasn’t been seen since. The staff members who accompanied their charges did not report his disappearance for at least two hours.

Law enforcement authorities and the Washington citizenry cannot fathom what possessed the hospital to include an insane killer on a pleasure outing. Tom Paul, his brother, is a vocal critic of that decision and believes that Phillip is still a very dangerous person.

I can well imagine all the ass covering that is going on right now at the state agency in charge of Washington's hospitals for the criminally insane. I’ve heard it all before, many times over. "We are a hospital, not a prison." "Our inmates are patients, not prisoners." "Our staff are medical attendants, not prison guards." And so it goes.

The only ones crazier than Paul are the hospital staff members who authorized his participation on that outing, especially since this was not his first escape. He also took off in 1991 during a field trip to town (Medical Lake). After he was recaptured, Paul knocked the arresting officer unconscious as he was being booked into jail.

I am sure that Phillip Paul’s freedom will be short lived. Let’s hope that between now and the time he is recaptured, no one will get hurt as a result of the hospital’s negligence.

I have a very close friend from India. He is a sea captain and was the master of the first container ship I took a cruise on. Right now, he is anchored off of Dubai.

My friend is very well educated and intellectual. During our 42-day cruise six years ago, we had many discussions ranging over all sorts of subjects, including world affairs. I just received an e-mail from him in which he made a number of comments on how, as an outsider, he sees Obama and our current political climate.

Here are the comments he made:.

I read in a newspaper that the opinion polls show that Obama's popularity has dropped a bit and that Republicans are attacking him over his proposed health insurance plans, that in Afghanistan he doesn't have a exit policy, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict time is running out, etc.

To me, as an outsider, Obama seems like a Gandhian figure given his firm belief in the goodness of human beings. He is doing his best for the American people and the world at large. I think this recession could not have bottomed out so rapidly but for his radical action. This is a brilliant man. and what's more, I can tell you he is restoring America's image abroad, which the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team had tried hard to bruise and succeeded.

So what is the reason for his so-called drop in approval ratings? If I recall correctly, even Bill Clinton had a terrible drop barely 6 months into the job at the start of his first term.

Are we simply getting less & less tolerant these days? Our opinion is so fickle...? What is the reality?----------

Here is how I replied to my friend:

Yes, his popularity has dropped for a variety of reasons. First and foremost is the belief among many Americans - Republicans, Independents and conservative Democrats - that our government is getting too big and that we are spending ourselves into bankruptcy. Many of us are alarmed at the influence that far-left Democrats have with him.

The opposition to his health care is fuelled somewhat by lies and scare tactics of the far-right. But many of us are truly concerned about the cost of the plans making their way through Congress. Seniors like myself are particularly concerned about losing some of our Medicare benefits. Obama wants to help pay for the health care reforms by eliminating $500 billion dollars of waste and fraud from Medicare and Medicaid. There is no way he can cut Medicare spending by the billions without cutting some of the benefits we are now receiving.

The majority of Americans are no longer supporting the war in Afghanistan because of the mounting casualties being suffered by our troops. Many fear that we will get bogged down there like we did in Viet Nam. Or worse yet, others fear we will end up getting our asses whipped like the Russians did.

As for the Palestinian situation, I have a strong personal interest in that. I predicted long before the election that if Obama became President, he would take a sharp turn away from Israel towards the Palestinians, and that is exactly what has happened. During the election campaign all of his foreign policy advisors were long-time critics of Israel and supporters of Palestinian causes. His tilting towards the Palestinians is designed to woo the Muslim world. If you browse through my blogs you will see why I believe Obama and Jimmy Carter are competing to be Israel's Public Enemy No. 1.

As for the economy, Obama has, for the most part, carried out the steps initiated by the Bush administration. I will admit though, that much of the blame for this mess lies with the Bush administration.

You see Obama as a modern day Gandhi. That's not the way I see him. I am puzzled as to how you see him as believing in the "goodness of human beings" and as doing his best for the "world at large." Yes, the rest of the world, particularly Europe, seems to love Obama, thus restoring the image of the U.S. that tanked during the Bush administration. He is reaching out to the Muslim world when Islam wants to destroy the Western world (read my recent blog with Geert Wilders' speech). Your country and your Hindu religion has suffered many attacks from the Muslims that Obama is reaching out to.

Are we becoming less tolerant? I don't think so. What is different is that we now have the internet which enables everyone to be informed instantly, albeit, with a lot of false information being circulated through the blogosphere. So, a lot of people get riled up quicker than in the past when it took a lot longer for news to circulate among the people.

Personally, I don't think Obama is the demon that many people paint him as. And I don't think he is going to change this country into a socialist one as many Americans fear, although he is moving somewhat in that direction. I did not vote for him and I do not like his far-left policies. And I certainly do not like his wooing of the Muslim world at the expense of Israel. That's why I hope he will only be a one-term president.----------

And here is the captain’s response to my comments:

I enjoyed every bit of your reply. It gave me an insight into the current debate in U.S. society and helped me fit the pieces of a puzzle in my own mind. I discuss these issues with my wife and children whenever I can in order to keep them informed about what's going on.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

I suspect that, when you saw the length of Geert Wilders’ speech, most of you failed to read it. That’s too bad because it contains some valuable lessons for America. A small portion of his speech concerned Israel.

When Wilders refers to Israel as the canary in the coal mine, he means that Islam's determination to destroy the Jewish state serves as a warning to the rest of the Western world that Islam is just as determined to destroy it.

Here is what Wilders had to say about Israel:

Just like communism, fascism and nazism, Islam is a threat to everything we stand for. It is a threat to democracy, to the constitutional state, to equality for men and women, to freedom and civilisation. Wherever you look in the world, the more Islam you see, the less freedom you see. Islam is a threat to the Europe of Bach and Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Socrates, Voltaire and Galileo.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is one Western country that has been forced to fight for its values since the very first day of its existence: Israel the canary in the coal mine. Let me say a few words about that wonderful country.

Like Bosnia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Sudan, the Caucasus, Kashmir, southern Thailand, western China and the south of the Philippines, Israel is situated exactly on the dividing line between Dar al-Islam, the Islamic world, and Dar al-Harb, the non-Islamic world. It is no coincidence that it is precisely this dividing line where blood is flowing. All those conflicts concern the Jihad, Jihad in the spirit of the barbarian Muhammad.

Islam forces Israel to fight. The so called ‘Middle East conflict’ is not at all a conflict about land. It is not about some inches of land in Gaza, Judea or Samaria. It is a conflict about ideologies, it is a battle between freedom and Islam, a battle between good and evil, to Islam the whole of Israel is occupied territory. To Islam Tel Aviv and Haifa are settlements too.

Israel is the only democracy in the entire Middle-East. Israel is an oasis of enlightment, whereas the rest of the Middle-East is covered by the black veil of the night. This is no coincidence, in 1939 Winston Churchill said about the Jews in what is now called Israel: "They have made the desert bloom."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am very much in favour of a two-state solution. One Jewish state called Israel including Judea and Samaria and one Palestinian state called Jordan.

Geert Wilders, the Dutch lawmaker who is under an Islamic fatwa death threat and will be tried in the Netherlands next year on charges of discrimination and inciting hatred ["Dutch Lawmaker To Be Tried For Comparing Obama To Neville Chamberlain" (9-15-09)], gave a speech in Copenhagen, Denmark this past June that should be a lesson for all Americans who are concerned about immigration, the spread of Islam, and the election of Chamberlain-like leaders.

Here, for the most part, is that Geert Wilders speech:

There is more good news these days. In Europe the socialists — or social democrats, as they prefer to call themselves — lost nearly everywhere: in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Germany, in Austria, in France, in Spain, in Italy and, perhaps best of all, in the United Kingdom. The greatest coward in Europe, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, suffered a tremendous blow at the hands of the British electorate. Serves him right!

Why is it good news that the socialists lost by such a margin?

Let me answer this myself. It’s good news because socialists are the most inveterate cultural relativists in Europe. They regard the Islamic culture of backwardness and violence as equal to our Western culture of freedom, democracy and human rights. In fact, it is the socialists who are responsible for mass immigration, Islamization and general decay of our cities and societies. It are the socialists who are responsible for the fact that cities such as Rotterdam, Marseille and Malmö seem to be situated in Eurabia rather than in Europe. And they are even proud of it.

Our Western elite, whether it are politicians, journalists or judges, have lost their way completely. All sense of reality has vanished. All common sense has been thrown to the wind. They take all efforts to deny the things that take place in front of our eyes, and deny everything that is so obviously seen by everyone else.

They won’t stand firm on any issue. Their cultural relativism affects absolutely everything up to the point where they no longer see the difference between good and evil, or between nonsense and logical common sense. Everything is pushed into a grey area, a foggy marsh without beginning or end. The only moral standard they still seem to apply is the question whether or not it is approved by Muslims. Everything Muslims disapprove, they disapprove too.

And so, the voters have had enough. Because they of course realise that Europe is going in the wrong direction. They know that there are enormous problems with Islam in Europe. They are well aware of the identity of those who are taking them for a ride, namely, the Shariah socialists.

As for those present here today, I’m sure everyone knows how intractable the problems with Islam are in Europe, given that Muslims are over-represented in crime rate figures as well as in social benefit statistics. Of course, this is not to say that there aren’t many Muslims of good will who are decent, law-abiding citizens. But facts are facts.

According to the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, mass immigration has to date cost the Dutch taxpayer more than one hundred billion Euros. According to the Danish national bank, every Danish Muslim immigrant costs the Danish state more than 300,000 Euros. A Swedish economist has calculated that mass immigration costs the Swedish taxpayer twenty-seven billion dollars annually. In Norway a warning has been issued to the effect that the proceeds from North Sea oil will have to be spent entirely on mass immigration, while in France official figures have been published suggesting that mass immigration is reducing growth in the French economy by two-thirds. In other words, mass immigration, demographic developments and Islamization are certainly partly causes of Europe’s steadily increasing impoverishment and decay.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may know of the Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels, who recently said that Muslim integration in the West is simply impossible. Now, that is not a novel idea. A certain Frenchman said pretty much the same thing in 1959. I quote, "Those who recommend integration must be considered pea-brained even if they are scholars and scientists. Just try mixing oil and vinegar. Then shake the bottle. After a moment the two substances will separate again. Do you really believe French society could absorb ten million Muslims, who would be twenty million tomorrow and forty million the day after? In fact, my own village would no longer be Colombey-les-deux-Églises but would rather come to be known as Colombey-les-deux-mosques."

This quote, you guessed it, is from none other than the former French President Charles de Gaulle.

Now, I do not know whether Sennels and De Gaulle were right in their conclusion that Muslims are incapable of integrating into other cultures. I think in reality we do see Muslims on individual level assimilating into our societies. But what I do know is that very many Muslims do not want to integrate. Again, the facts don’t lie: four in ten British Muslim students want Sharia law to be implemented, while one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. Seven out of ten Spanish Muslims consider their self a Muslim first, instead of a Spanish citizen. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks, half of Dutch Muslims admit to ‘understanding’ the 9/11 attacks. Seven out of ten youth prisoners here in Copenhagen are Muslim. In 2005, 82% of the crimes in Copenhagen were committed by immigrants, many of them Muslim. More than half of the Danish Muslims think that it should be forbidden to criticise Islam and two out of three Danish Muslims think that free speech should be curtailed.

Some time ago an interview was held in France with the French Muslim student Mohamed Sabaoui, who said the following, and I quote:

"Your laws do not coincide with the Koran, Muslims can only be ruled by Shariah law.

We will declare Roubaix an independent Muslim enclave and impose Shariah Law upon all its citizens.

We will be your Trojan Horse, we will rule, Allah akbar."

End of quote.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: Islam has always attempted to conquer Europe. Spain fell in the 8th century, Constantinople fell in the 15th century, even Vienna and Poland were threatened, and now, in the 21st century, Islam is trying again. This time not with armies, but through the application of Al-Hijra, the Islamic doctrine of migration and demography.

Unfortunately, the Al-Hijra doctrine is very successful. For the first time in world history there are dozens of millions of Muslims living far outside the Dar al-Islam, the Islamic world. Al-Hijra may be the end of European civilization as we know it: The second Dutch city, Rotterdam, will have a non-Western majority within 3 years. Europe has now more than 50 million Muslims, it is expected that this will be doubled in just 20 years. By 2025, one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families.

As I said, many of those Muslims in Europe would like to implement Shariah Law in our judicial systems. As you know, Shariah law covers all areas of life, from religion, hygiene and dietary laws, to dress code, family and social life and from finance and politics to the unity of Islam with the state. For some crimes, horrific, barbaric punishments are prescribed, such as beheading and the chopping off of opposite limbs. In Shariah Courts no woman may become judge. Shariah Law does not recognize free speech and freedom of religion. Polygamy and killing an apostate are ‘virtues’, but the consumption of alcohol is a crime. This is the sick Shariah Law in a nutshell, and it is unbelievable and unacceptable that the cultural relativists allow Shariah banks, Shariah mortgages, Shariah schools and unofficial — and in Britain even official — Shariah tribunals in Europe.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are of course shocking facts, figures and statements. However, they are not particularly surprising to anybody who has some knowledge of the Koran and knows who Muhammad was.

In this connection, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to very briefly discuss the essence of Islam, and let me come straight to the point: Islam is not so much a religion as, first and foremost, an ideology; to be precise, like communism and fascism, a political, totalitarian ideology, with worldwide aspirations.

Of course, there are many moderate Muslims. However, there is no such a thing as a moderate Islam. Islam’s heart lies in the Koran. The Koran is an evil book that calls for violence, murder, terrorism, war and submission. The Koran describes Jews as monkeys and pigs. The Koran calls upon Muslims to kill the Kaffirs, the non-Muslims.

The problem is that the injunctions in the Koran are not restricted to time or place. Rather, they apply to all Muslims, in any period. Another problem is that Muslims also regard the Koran as the word of Allah. Which means that the Koran is immune from criticism.

Apart from the Koran, there is also the life of Muhammad, who fought in dozens of wars and was in the habit of decapitating Jews with his own sword. The problem here is that, to Muslims, Muhammad is ‘the perfect man’, whose life is the model to follow.

This is why Jihadists slaughtered innocent people in Washington, New York, Madrid, Amsterdam, London and Mumbai.

Now is clear why Winston Churchill, in his book ‘The second world war’, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. Now is clear why the famous Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, in 1936 said, and I quote, "It is impossible to understand national socialism unless we see it in fact as a new Islam, its myth as a new Allah, and Hitler as this new Allah’s prophet." Now is clear why Heinrich Himmler was an admirer of Islam. And now is clear why President Obama, who last week, in Cairo, said that Islam has a tradition of tolerance, should be sent back to school.

Just like communism, fascism and nazism, Islam is a threat to everything we stand for. It is a threat to democracy, to the constitutional state, to equality for men and women, to freedom and civilisation. Wherever you look in the world, the more Islam you see, the less freedom you see. Islam is a threat to the Europe of Bach and Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Socrates, Voltaire and Galileo.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is one Western country that has been forced to fight for its values since the very first day of its existence: Israel the canary in the coal mine. Let me say a few words about that wonderful country.

Like Bosnia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Sudan, the Caucasus, Kashmir, southern Thailand, western China and the south of the Philippines, Israel is situated exactly on the dividing line between Dar al-Islam, the Islamic world, and Dar al-Harb, the non-Islamic world. It is no coincidence that it is precisely this dividing line where blood is flowing. All those conflicts concern the Jihad, Jihad in the spirit of the barbarian Muhammad.

Islam forces Israel to fight. The so called ‘Middle East conflict’ is not at all a conflict about land. It is not about some inches of land in Gaza, Judea or Samaria. It is a conflict about ideologies, it is a battle between freedom and Islam, a battle between good and evil, to Islam the whole of Israel is occupied territory. To Islam Tel Aviv and Haifa are settlements too.

Israel is the only democracy in the entire Middle-East. Israel is an oasis of enlightment, whereas the rest of the Middle-East is covered by the black veil of the night. This is no coincidence, in 1939 Winston Churchill said about the Jews in what is now called Israel: "They have made the desert bloom."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am very much in favour of a two-state solution. One Jewish state called Israel including Judea and Samaria and one Palestinian state called Jordan.

Ladies and gentlemen, wherever Islam and cultural relativism, advocated by Shariah-socialists, come together, freedom of expression is threatened. In Europe in particular, freedom of expression is at risk. As you may know, I am being prosecuted in the Netherlands for expressing my opinion, while being banned from the United Kingdom for the same reason. But, of course, this whole matter is not only about me. There is an ongoing Jihad against free speech in the whole of Europe. In Austria, for example, a lady politician was prosecuted for having spoken the truth about Muhammad. The truth, mind you! We have also had the Danish cartoon crisis; not to mention the threats and/or killing of people as Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh, Oriana Fallaci and my brave friend Wafa Sultan. In the Netherlands a cartoonist was arrested by no fewer than ten policemen for having made some drawings! I could go on, but I won’t because it would make you sick.

Ladies and gentlemen, I strongly suggest that we should defend freedom of speech, with all our strength. Free speech is the most important of all our many civil rights. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern free societies. Without free speech there is no democracy, no freedom. It is our obligation to defend free speech. It is our obligation to preserve the heritage of the British Magna Charta and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. It is our obligation to defend the American Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Human rights protect the freedom of individuals but they do not protect ideologies. I propose two things:

I propose a boycott of the UN Human Rights Council [which the Obama administration has just rejoined - the Bush administration withdrew from it in 2004]. Annually this Council adopts resolutions that attempt to kill free speech and the concept of human rights. Let there be no mistake about it, the UN Human Rights Council is a threat to free speech in the West.

I propose to repeal all hate speech laws in Europe. These laws enable radical Muslims to silence those critical of Islam. Free speech should be extended instead of restricted in Europe. We should consider laws comparable to the American First Amendment.

Unfortunately, however, if we really wish to combat the Islamization of Europe effectively, we will have to do more than guard or extend freedom of speech. In this regard it is my firm conviction that we will have to take the following measures:

First, we will have to end all forms of cultural relativism. For this purpose we will need an amendment to our constitutions stating that our European cultural foundation is Judeo-Christian and Humanistic in nature. To the cultural relativists, the Shariah-socialists, I would proudly say, "Our Western culture is superior to Islamic culture." Or to quote Wafa Sultan when she compared the Western culture with Islam: "It’s not a clash of civilizations, it’s a clash between barbarity and reason". I fully agree with her.

Second, we will have to stop mass immigration from Muslim countries and promote voluntary repatriation.

Third, we will have to expel criminal foreigners and, following denaturalisation, criminals with dual nationality. I have a clear message to all Muslims in our societies: if you subscribe to our laws, values and constitution you are very welcome to stay and we will even help you to assimilate. But if you cross the red line and commit crimes, start thinking and acting like jihad or sharia we will expel you the same out of our countries.

Fourth, we will have to close down all Islamic schools for they are fascist institutions, to prevent any further indoctrination of young children with an ideology of violence and hatred.

Fifth, we will have to close down all radical and forbid the construction of any new mosques, there is enough Islam in Europe. Besides that, as long as Christians in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are treated in the scandalous ways they currently are, and as long as no permission is given for churches to be built or bibles to be sold in, for example, Saudi Arabia, there should be a mosque building-stop in the West.

Sixth, last but not least, we will have to get rid of all those cowardly so-called leaders. We enjoy the privilege of living in a democracy. Let’s use that privilege by replacing cowards with heroes. Let’s have fewer Chamberlains and more Churchills. Lets elect real leaders.

PRESIDENT CARTER THE SECONDIt is not only an Israeli problemby Dr. Ron Breiman

IsraelNationalNews.comSeptember 18, 2009

American Presidents usually serve in the White House for two terms - eight years. Sometimes, a president stays Obama is facing a severe crisis in three nuclear, or nucleating, states: North Korea, Pakistan and Iran.only four years. A well-known example is Jimmy Carter, who was in office between 1977 and 1981.

Carter lacked the skill needed to correctly analyze the complex situations in various parts of the world, and especially in the Middle East. The outcome was his stumbling treatment of the Iranian issue, which led to the collapse of the Shah's regime (due to his naive concern regarding human rights there), to the rise of the ayatollahs who govern Iran and endanger the world since 1979, to the embarrassing crisis of 52 Americans being captured and held in Iran for 444 days, to the failed operation to liberate them. He was humiliated when they were freed only after his defeat in the 1980 elections, on the day when President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

The first months of Barack Hussein Obama in office indicate that the current president shares a similar difficulty, and insinuate that the outcome may be similar - perhaps once again in the Iranian arena. Obama is facing a severe crisis in three nuclear, or nucleating, states: North Korea, Pakistan and Iran.

The North Koreans already have a nuclear state that possesses launching capacity and they use provocations in order to check the resolve of the American administration. Facing the hesitation in Washington, Pyongyang dares more and more.

In Pakistan, a long-time nuclear power, there is a real danger that the regime might collapse, and its nuclear capacities be captured by the rebels. The insurgents are now approaching the capital and facing the weakness of the government, in spite of American backing.

Iran is galloping towards possession of nuclear power and the bomb, ignoring the Western "pressure" to cease. In the near future, these three states may be governed by extreme and adventurous regimes, possessing nuclear power.

In addition, the US and the world are facing the worst economic crisis in the last 80 years.

Yet, with all these problems on his desk, President Hussein Obama, the leader of the free world, is dealing again and again with the housing and childbirth of the Jews in their homeland. It seems as if Obama's courting of the Muslim world (e.g., his speech in Cairo) distorts his analysis of the global reality. It is not only an Israeli problem. When the leader of the free world has an unreasonable order of priorities, it is a problem for America and for the entire free world.

An example of that distortion is an answer given by American Vice-President Joe Biden when asked about a possible Israeli attack in Iran. He said that the US cannot dictate to a sovereign country what it can or cannot do. These words are in contradiction with the American dictates regarding Jewish housing and life in the heartland of the Jewish country and in their capital city. Even this contradiction proves that the current American administration is too immature to manage global affairs.

Another example is the American functioning in Iraq. The populist promise was to withdraw troops by 2012 and to transfer rule to an Iraqi government; yet, such government can survive if - and only if - American troops are there.

The same is true for Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the chairman of the Palestinian (Terror) Authority. He can survive only as long as the IDF protects him.

Iran and Syria, the aggressive neighbors of Iraq, are already awaiting the American withdrawal, planning invasion and division of Iraq. It should also be brought to Obama's attention that both Jordan and Israel, America's allies in this part of the world, will suffer a lot from this poor decisionmaking regarding Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Looking at the way in which Hussein Obama conducts his global policy - especially in the Middle East - one can expect that he may end his term as President Carter the Second: another one-term president who maltreats Jews (see Carter's book Peace not Apartheid, and various statements he has made) and who failed the Iranian test.

Friday, September 18, 2009

A Georgia State Trooper pulled a car over on I-95 about 2 miles south of the Georgia/South Carolina state line.

When the Trooper asked the driver why he was speeding, the driver answered that he was a magician and a juggler and he was on his way to Savannah to do a show that night at the Shrine Circus and didn't want to be late.

The Trooper told the driver he was fascinated by juggling, and if the driver would do a little juggling for him then he wouldn't give him a ticket.

The driver told the Trooper that he had sent all of his equipment on ahead and didn't have anything to juggle.

The Trooper told him that he had some flares in the trunk of his patrol car and asked if he could juggle them.

The juggler stated that he could, so the trooper got three flares, lit them and handed them to the juggler.

While the man was doing his juggling act, a car pulled in behind the patrol car.

A drunk, good old boy, from S.C., got out and watched the performance briefly. He then went over to the patrol car, opened the rear door and got in.

The Trooper observed him doing this and went over to the patrol car, opened the door and asked the drunk what he thought he was doing.

The drunk replied, "You might as well take my ass to jail, cause there's no way in hell I can pass that test.."

Columbus, Ohio police arrested one of three robbers after he returned to ask his victim for a date less than two hours after the Sept. 6 robbery occurred. He asked the victim if she had a boyfrined and wanted to go out on a date.

"We are not exactly sure what he was thinking at the time," said Columbus police Sgt. Sean Laird. "She recognized him right away when he returned and was able to have her cousin call 911." Laird added that in the more than eight years he’s been a cop, "I’ve never had anything like this [happen] before."

Police officers arrested the amorous robber in front of the victim’s house. He faces aggravated robbery charges. His two accomplices remained at large.

OLD FART ON OXYGEN ROBS CALIFORNIA BANK

A well-dressed old fart robbed the San Diego National Bank in La Jolla of an undetermined amount of cash last Saturday.

The robber was connected to an oxygen tank by plastic tubing that ran to his nose. He carried the tank in a black bag.

He was described as a tall man in his 70s with white hair, a gray mustache and glasses. He was wearing a white beret, argyle sweater and brown sports jacket.

He gave a teller a note demanding money. No one knows for sure if the robber had a weapon.

BURGLAR SLAIN BY AMERICAN SAMURAI

Around 1;20 a.m. last Tuesday, a 20-year-old Johns Hopkins University student heard noises behind his off-campus home and noticed a door to his garage was open. Armed with a samurai sword, the student confronted a burglar in the yard.

When the student yelled at his roommate to call 9-11, the intruder lunged at him. In the best tradition of a Japanese samurai warrior, the student quickly dispatched the burglar with with one swish of his sword.

The deadly swordsmanship occurred only hours after someone broke into his apartment earlier and stole some electronic equipment. After the police held him for several hours, the junior chemistry major was released without any charges being filed.

The dead man had an arrest record of 29 burglaries and had been released from jail only a few hours earlier.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, a putrid perversion of every high ideal upon which it was founded, has issued a report calling the Israelis war criminals. The HRC has also, in obedience to the wishes of Chavez and Castro, ejected the representative from Honduras. In the very week it has committed these outrages, the Obama administration has announced that the United States, which quit the organization in 2006, will rejoin. Brilliant.

The Human Rights Council is the successor to the thoroughly discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, which boasted such members as China, Zimbabwe, Russia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. In 2004, the commission unanimously accepted membership for Sudan, a state actively engaged in genocide in Darfur. (That was when the U.S. walked out.)

Changing one word in its name, the Human Rights Council instantly resumed its former practices: ignoring massive human rights violations around the globe and condemning Israel. Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN summarizes:

"The council has passed more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 U.N. members combined. The council has one (of only ten) formal agenda items dedicated to criticizing Israel. And one agenda item to consider the human rights of the remaining 99.9 percent of the world's population. ... It has terminated human rights investigations on Belarus, Cuba, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And all investigations of 'consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of all human rights and all fundamental freedoms' in such states as Iran, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been 'discontinued.'"

The council's "investigation" of war crimes in Gaza, published this week, is everything we have come to expect from an organization that gives Cuba a pass and welcomes Sudan to monitor human rights violations.

In the first place, the mission's mandate was slanted from the start. It was tasked with investigating violations of international law by "the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people." One of the mission's four members, Christine Chinkin, signed a public letter denouncing Israel for "war crimes" before the investigation got under way. For this reason, Mary Robinson, former high commissioner for human rights (and no great friend of Israel) refused to participate. She said the mandate was "not balanced because it focuses on what Israel did, without calling for an investigation on the launch of the rockets by Hamas." She might have added that Israel is not the "occupying" power in Gaza, having withdrawn in 2005.

While the report accuses "both sides" of committing war crimes (and mentions those rockets, in passing), the bulk of the 575 page report addresses supposed Israeli offenses. The mission's capacity to hear impartial testimony was hampered by its willingness to permit Palestinian witnesses to be accompanied by Hamas officials. Call it the Middle Eastern version of Card Check. Nor could they expect to hear a balanced presentation from the representatives of radical non-governmental organizations within Israel who routinely side with the Palestinians. Without offering evidence for its conclusions, the mission denied widespread reporting that Hamas combatants dressed in civilian clothing, hid in hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings, and used ambulances for military transports.

Seated comfortably in Geneva, the mission denounced Israel for failing to take more precautions to protect civilians. It acknowledged neither Israel's extensive use of warning leaflets and phone calls, nor the culpability of Hamas in placing rocket launchers in civilian areas. But above all, the report turned reality on its head by conceiving of Israel, the target of 12,000 rockets fired directly into civilian areas, as the aggressor, and of Hamas, a terrorist gang behaving as terrorists do, as the victims. After enduring the terror of rocket attacks for eight years, Israel defended herself militarily. Now Israel stands morally condemned by the United Nations for doing so. Hamas, whose unrelenting aggression provoked a response, and whose use of human shields should be regarded as a war crime, is given a pass.

The U.N. scored a public relations coup in getting South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who is Jewish, to chair the panel. He must answer to his own conscience, but his participation does point up some of the bald contrasts in the world. While there are any number of Jews and even Israelis who side with the Palestinians, or whose longing for international respectability causes them to lean over backwards in criticizing Israel, there are no Palestinians who openly sympathize with Israel. Where do you find Palestinian moderates? In the graveyards.

Just as the U.N. Human Rights Council is besmirching itself in this way, the Obama administration elects to lend it the prestige of American membership. Shame appears to be in season.

It appears that cities are taking drastic steps to protect their citizens from the 50% of parolees who will commit new crimes. Today, parole is practically meaningless and the public is not being protected because parolees are not receiving adequate supervision.

Coincidentally, during my first year on the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, Desert Hot Springs was one of the areas that I patrolled.

CITY COUNCIL APPROVES ORDINANCE TO SANCTION PAROLEE RESIDENCESBy Leslie Andrews

Desert Local NewsSeptember 16, 2009

DESERT HOT SPRINGS, CA- On Tuesday, the City Council of Desert Hot Springs voted unanimously to regulate the residency of parolees throughout the city.

This would now mean that any property owner who rents to two or more parolees/probationers living together (who are not related by blood, marriage nor adoption). If the parolee owns the home, the law would not apply. Property owners who fall under these guidelines will now have to pay a $3900 conditional use permit.

Three other cities in California (Riverside, Fontana and Yucaipa) have similar ordinances in place. In terms of how many parolees actually reside in Desert Hot Springs, there are just as many as the city of Indio has, and more than what Palm Springs has, considering how Palm Springs is twice the size in square mileage.

One of the reasons why the city of Desert Hot Springs decided to adopt this ordinance is because statistically, 70% of parolees and probationers are likely to offend again. "We want to make ourselves less vulnerable to this," said Chief Pat Williams. "The nuts and bolts of this ordinance would limit the locations where parolees could live."

The Chief also stated that police respond to these residences as much as eight times per month, nearly 100 times per year. "I believe this will remedy the situation," Williams added. Plus, property owners are required to report weekly activities of the parolees and letting the city know how many are still living in their homes.

According to more guidelines, each home cannot house more than six parolees or probationers, and no bedroom can house more than two. Multiple family residences with less than 25 units can house no more than one per unit, and those with more than 25 can house no more than two per unit. The owner or an on-site manager must live on the premises.

When it comes to hotels, those with 14 rooms or less are limited to housing three parolees/probationers in a 28 day period. Larger hotels are limited to housing five.

The distance required for parolees/probationers to be living apart from one another was set at 1,320 feet and must not be within 660 feet away from any school, child care facility, park or church, as was previously reported. Also, there is a one year grace period to allow property owners to comply.

Hank Hohenstein, a former city councilman, stated that the city council should table this item for at least a month. "We need to take a good look at possible class action lawsuits," he mentioned.